You Can't Have My Planet

by James Mihaley

  “Who designed your costume?” asked the werewolf suspiciously.

  “The Dark Lord of the Universe,” hissed the Kundabon.

  “Could you give me his card?” inquired the vampire.

  Because there were so many people around, I couldn’t fire any artillery at the Kundabon and run the risk of hurting someone. I had to be patient. It wasn’t easy. When your brother is trapped in a hairy cage and your species is about to get evicted and it’s all your fault, you kind of want to get things moving.

  Even DubDub was getting antsy.

  Giles, we must have the cloudfish. Without them we are at the mercy of this monster.

  I contacted Toshi. “Any luck finding the cloudfish?”

  “My radar is showing something out over Long Island Sound,” Toshi said. “I’m going to investigate.”

  When the curtain came back up, the mummy elbowed the Kundabon in the ribs. “Hey, dude, this is my scene.”

  “Is that so?” the Kundabon replied, picking up the mummy like a rag doll and tossing him into the balcony.

  The crowd cheered.

  The Kundabon climbed down into the audience, crawling on all fours up the aisle, dragging Bobby.

  Everyone in the theater could see my frantic brother inside the hairy cage.

  “Help!” he pleaded. “Get me out of here!”

  The audience laughed at him.

  “We’re not part of the show!” Bobby cried.

  “Check out his eyelids,” someone said, snapping the monster’s photograph. “God, are they cool.”

  The Kundabon’s red, triangle-shaped eyes had three ghost white lids, which all met over the black slit of his pupil when he blinked.

  “You’re so lifelike,” a woman wearing a neck brace said.

  “He’s a real monster,” Bobby said.

  “That kid is a lousy actor,” someone snorted.

  “I’m not an actor.” Bobby reached out his hands toward a boy in the back. “If you get me out of here, I’ll give you a free copy of my book. It’s called How to Get Your Homework Done. Dude, you’ll never fail another exam.”

  The monster soared up through the roof and was gone.

  The crowd went berserk.

  “Did you see that? It went right through the ceiling!”

  “These are the coolest special effects I’ve ever seen!”

  I chased the Kundabon across the city.

  Down below us, on almost every block, androids were slumped on park benches, too weak to get up and clean the city, unable to take the final steps to transform themselves into trees.

  It was almost ten o’clock. Only two hours left.

  I saw something suspicious on a side street in Gramercy Park and flew down to investigate.

  A man and woman were unloading a U-Haul in the moonlight. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, the woman picked up a piano by herself and placed it on the curb.

  I flicked on my loudspeaker and tried to sound like a cop, “Boy, you sure are strong. Aren’t you, lady?”

  The woman almost fainted from shock. She flashed a worried smile. “It’s all that Pilates.”

  The husband peered underneath the truck, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.

  “What are you two up to?” I said.

  “Nothing, officer,” said the woman. “We’re just moving into our new apartment. We’re so excited to be living in Gramercy Park.”

  “It’s a dream come true,” the man added.

  “What planet are you from?” I said.

  “Uh … Earth,” the man mumbled.

  “Sure you are.”

  Firing a precise laser, DubDub peeled off the skin on the man’s left hand. A purple claw slipped out. The man tried desperately to hide it in his coat pocket.

  “You’re not allowed to move in yet,” I said. “The humans have not been evicted. I’m a marshal from the Halls of Universal Justice. Do you want me to place you under arrest?”

  The woman elbowed her husband. “I told you we should’ve waited.”

  “Yeah, but if we waited all the prime real estate will get gobbled up. Do you want to end up in Yonkers?”

  “I’d rather be in Yonkers than a maximum-security intergalactic prison!” I yelled.

  “That’s a very good point, officer. We’re leaving right away.”

  They hopped in the van and vanished through an envelope in space.

  The Kundabon was watching from a rooftop across the street.

  I followed it helplessly into the grand ballroom of a hotel, where a wedding reception was taking place. Hanging from a chandelier above the dance floor, unnoticed by all the gyrating people, he unrolled his endless tongue toward the mother of the bride, licking a tear off her cheek.

  He spat it out.

  Why did he spit out the tear, DubDub?

  It was a happy tear, Giles. Happy tears burn a hole in a Kundabon’s tongue like acid.

  I flew into my brother’s ear and tried to comfort him. “Hey, Bobby, it won’t be much longer. I give you my word.”

  Toshi’s voice buzzed over my intercom. “Giles, I found the cloudfish.”

  “Way to go, Toshi. Only cloudfish can take down a Kundabon.”

  “I don’t think they can take down anyone, Giles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the cloudfish are being taken down.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DUBDUB FLICKED ON my monitor, allowing Toshi to transmit video footage. Thousands of cloudfish were gathered out over the Long Island Sound, diving one after another like pelicans into the ocean. None of them came back out of the water. It was pretty spooky.

  “It looks like they’re drowning, Toshi. Why do they keep diving in?”

  “The lobster cloudfish is trapped at the bottom of the sea. The princess put it there. She’s got some kind of high-tech lobster trap. The other cloudfish are trying to rescue it.”

  A school of dolphin cloudfish plunged into the murky water.

  DubDub interrupted my talk with Toshi.

  This is a very disturbing development, Giles. Cloudfish can’t swim. They are allergic to water. The only way to kill a cloudfish is by drowning it. It is the ultimate paradox.

  I had no idea what that meant, but I couldn’t stop to find out.

  Is there anything Toshi can do, DubDub?

  He must dive down to the bottom of the sea and free the lobster cloudfish. His flyplane has submarine capability. It is armed with torpedoes.

  “OK, Toshi,” I said, still inside my brother’s ear. “I’m sure Superfly told you what to do. Go dive down and rescue the lobster.”

  “There’s one big problem, Giles.”

  “What’s that, Toshi?”

  “I can’t swim.”

  “Dude, you’re going to be in a submarine. You don’t have to swim.”

  “Dude, you don’t understand. Just being near water freaks me out.”

  “Dude, get your butt into the ocean right now. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

  “What about sharks?” Toshi asked.

  “DUDE, YOU’RE THE SIZE OF A HOUSEFLY. DO YOU THINK A GREAT WHITE SHARK IS GOING TO WASTE ITS TIME ON YOU?”

  Toshi’s voice broke up. The line went dead.

  We will get better reception outside the Kundabon’s cage, Giles.

  OK, DubDub.

  We flew out of Bobby’s ear.

  Do the cloudfish know they’ll drown if they dive in, DubDub?

  Yes, Giles. The cloudfish would prefer to all die in a rescue effort than to let one of their own perish. It is the nature of cloudfish.

  It is the nature of a Kundabon to not let you leave its cage. When we tried to leave the cage by zipping in between the hairy bars, the whiskers grabbed DubDub, wrapping around his wings. DubDub fired a laser at them, trying to unmummify his wings. For each whisker we removed, a dozen more slithered up from the bony bars.

  “Toshi, I’m trapped,” I yelled over the i
ntercom.

  Could he hear me? What if … what if he was stabbing me in the back? We removed the black butterfly, right? But what if it planted an egg?

  I tried not to believe it. I tried to have faith.

  High above Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, DubDub sat motionless in the center of the cage, tangled up in whiskers. Luckily the belligerent bristles had yet to penetrate the cockpit. Like cobras, they eyed me ravenously, pressing their faces up against the glass dome of the cockpit, trying to find a way in. They were so sneaky and slippery and slimy, they found a crack in the glass where there wasn’t a crack. Somehow they slithered right through the glass into the cockpit, swarming all over me, coiling around my throat. I couldn’t fend them off. I was slowly suffocating.

  I began to hallucinate. I saw Toshi soaring over Fifth Avenue with an army of cloudfish, coming to the rescue.

  The Kundabon panicked when it saw the cloudfish. It took off, heading west, in the direction of the George Washington Bridge. The grip around my throat seemed to loosen, as if the whiskers were weakened by the monster’s fear.

  Wait. This wasn’t a dream. It really was Toshi! He must’ve rescued the lobster!

  A school of dolphin cloudfish formed a rainbow high above the George Washington Bridge. Moonlit rainbows have an otherworldly luster. The Kundabon flew into it, grimacing as if it had just been scalded. If you’re a Kundabon, a rainbow is a big problem. A rainbow is to a Kundabon what a crucifix is to a vampire. He kept brushing up against bits of iridescense in the night sky. Each time it happened the whiskers weakened until finally DubDub broke free and flew out of the cage, spinning figure eights over a tugboat on the Hudson River.

  “Toshi, can you hear me?”

  “I sure can, dude,” he said, pulling up alongside me in Superfly.

  “You did it, Toshi. You came through in the clutch.”

  “We still need to free your brother.”

  This was true.

  A pair of fully armed flyplanes zeroed in on the George Washington Bridge. The monster perched on a suspension cable, trying to catch its breath. Cloudfish surrounded it, swimming through the air in frantic circles. More cloudfish waited in ambush behind the tollbooth on the Jersey side. The monster had nowhere to go.

  The door on the Kundabon’s cage had a keyhole.

  Do Keyholians live in there, DubDub?

  No, Giles. Nothing can live in there.

  Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the candy key given to me by Key-wee. It couldn’t hurt to try. While traffic streamed back and forth across the bridge only a few feet away, I flew into the keyhole on the monster’s hairy cage. Another much smaller keyhole existed inside it, just as Mr. Keyholian predicted. Smart guy. It was just big enough to fit the candy key. The door on the cage opened. It made the loudest weirdest creaking sound you’ve ever heard. If you took the sound of every rusty door opening in the history of the world and put them together, that’s about what it sounded like.

  “Hey, Kundabon,” I yelled over the loudspeaker. “You need to oil those hinges, you creep.”

  It was so loud it made the George Washington Bridge sway. Cars swerved and skidded.

  Bobby stepped out of the cage, tottering on the edge, peering at the water one thousand feet down. He hurled himself forward, so desperate to escape he forgot all about the danger of jumping. If I hadn’t come soaring by in my flyplane, he would’ve plunged to his death in the Hudson River. I shrank him down in midair and popped open the hatch in my copilot’s seat. He landed safely inside it.

  “What’s up, Bobby?” I said.

  “Not much. How’s it going, Giles?”

  The Kundabon couldn’t believe it. He was more shocked than I had been when I saw Tula kiss Bobby. He just stared at his empty cage. It blew his evil mind. He burst out crying. The big hairy monster started bawling. Tears gushed out, a streaming waterfall cascading into the Hudson River.

  Giles, those are all the tears he ever licked since the beginning of time. He is required by Kundabon law to release them if someone escapes from his cage.

  Cool, DubDub!

  Defeating a Kundabon is one of life’s great pleasures. But it was 10:50 p.m. The city still wasn’t clean.

  We were in big trouble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE REAL TULA sat at our kitchen table with a glum look on her face. “I was hoping Dr. Sprinkles would be able to repair the androids. Unfortunately Dr. Sprinkles is no position to be helping anyone.”

  “Why not?” I said, bouncing frantically around the room, way too nervous to sit down.

  “She’s in a dungeon on Venus.”

  “A dungeon?” Bobby said. “What happened?”

  “She was walking past a yoga studio. There were a bunch of shoes just sitting there, since people take off their shoes before doing yoga. Dr. Sprinkles saw a pair of sandals she liked and stole them. It turns out they belonged to the queen.”

  “What is wrong with that lady?” I said. “Why is she so into shoes?”

  “It will take me at least a week to get her released from prison,” Tula said.

  “We’ll all be hanging out on Desoleen by then,” Toshi said.

  I glanced at the clock, 11:02. I threw open the freezer and slammed it shut. “That’s it,” I said, punching the refrigerator door. “I don’t care what anyone says. I’m going to Jersey and I’m stealing all their trees.”

  “I’m with you, Giles,” Toshi said.

  “I agree,” Bobby said. “We’ll shrink them down and replant them in Central Park.”

  Tula jumped up from the table, cornered me by the microwave and unleashed a furious whisper: “I’d never go out with a tree stealer.”

  She plopped back down at the table.

  I punched Toshi in the arm. “Toshi, how many times do I have to tell you? We’re not stealing any trees.”

  “Dude, it was your idea,” he said.

  “Can’t you do some magic with your briefcase, Tula?” Nikki said.

  “I’d get charged with tampering, Nikki,” Tula explained. “That’s a serious offense. You humans would get evicted automatically.”

  “Scratch that,” Toshi said.

  I hovered over the sink, tapping a spoon insanely on the faucet, staring out the window. Down below, a boy picked up a candy wrapper off the street and handed it to an ailing street cleaner sprawled out on a park bench. The android tossed it feebly into his trash can and thanked the kid. I recognized the kid. It was the nerd from the community garden, the one who picked up the fridge by himself.

  On the other side of the street, two other kids were fishing newspapers out of the gutter and stuffing them in the trash can of a lady street cleaner. Three other kids on the next block were collecting cardboard boxes outside a newsstand and breaking them up.

  “Hey, you guys,” I said. “Come take a look at this.”

  Everyone ran to the window.

  “Look,” I said, “they’re out there helping the street cleaners. They don’t even know what’s at stake.” I panicked. “They are allowed to clean. Aren’t they, Tula? This isn’t a violation, is it?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Children are allowed to clean their planet.”

  Hands trembling with excitement, I whipped out my smart phone and called Navida. “Kids are out there helping the street cleaners, Navida.”

  “It’s not my fault, Giles. They did it on their own. The cleaners look so exhausted. They were just trying to help. I hope they’re not ruining everything.”

  “Ruining? They’re saving the day.”

  “They are? I thought you said we weren’t supposed to bother the street cleaners.”

  “I had it all wrong. They love to be bothered. There’s nothing they love more than when kids bother them. And the best way to bother them is by picking up recyclables and filling up their trash cans. That’s their favorite kind of bothering. They’d rather be bothered by that than by getting a million bucks.”

  “How is a million bucks a bother,
Giles?”

  I had to think about that for a second. “Well, you’ve got to open a Swiss bank account. You’ve got to figure out where you’re going to park your Ferrari. Parking a car is a major problem in New York City. That’s why everyone takes cabs.”

  “OK, OK. I get it, Giles.”

  “Go get recyclables, Navida. Tell everyone to go get them and give them to the street cleaners.”

  “I’ll spread the word.”

  “Tell them it must be done by midnight.”

  “Why?” Navida asked. “Is midnight some kind of deadline?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “No problem, Giles. I’ll tell everyone we need to finish by then because all good kids should be in bed by midnight.”

  “Now you’re talking,” I said.

  Navida posted it on her blog.

  She posted it on Facebook and Twitter.

  Within ten minutes, kids were springing into action, rich and poor, swarming out of brownstones and skyscrapers, roaming the streets of Manhattan, snatching up paper and glass and plastic and feeding them to the street cleaners.

  Even kids who didn’t read Navida’s blog found out. (I bet you’re wondering how. Aren’t you, reader? Well, the Empire State Building is half the size of a child’s curiosity.) When children peered out their bedroom windows and saw streets full of kids, they wondered what was going on. They had to go check it out for themselves. When they got down there, they caught the fever. The fever of cleaning, polishing the city until it sparkled like a diamond.

  More and more kids got on board. Five dozen became five hundred, five hundred became five thousand. It kept gathering momentum, a beautiful snowball rolling through the heatwave, an unstoppable, unbeatable, unmeltable snowball.

  Even Buck the bully, the super’s son, was standing by my side, picking up bottles in front of our building. Buck was on my team. How bizarre is that?

  Every street, every block was swarming with kids. We halted traffic.

  “Why don’t you arrest these little punks?” a frustrated cabbie told a cop.

  “Why don’t I arrest you instead?” said the cop.

  We all cheered for the cop. He took off his cap and bowed to us.

  Bobby was up in command and control, monitoring the progress of the droids. He relayed the numbers back to me. This enabled me to determine which street cleaners needed more paper and plastic. I alternated between between zipping around in the flyplane, barking out orders over the loudspeaker, and making myself big so I could join the fun and roam the streets with all the kids.